My Hero

This is my dad.....he is 86 years old and he's my hero ....... and this week I thought he was going to die.......and it really scared me....really scared me.

I know that this should be expected and in a sense you should be ready for it...but...are you really ever ready to let your parent go off to heaven and not see them again for awhile? Not that you have a choice, mind you.....

My dad is a diabetic and his kidneys stopped functioning so he has dialysis three times a week...plus this past summer, after many trips to the hospital because of hemorrhaging, they diagnosed that he had ulcerated colitis and he had a mild heart attack..........

For the last few weeks his sugar levels have had times of being quite low and this past Wednesday he had one that went extremely low.....my mom called me and said....can you come over....dad is just sitting there...he's not acting right.....I hurried over after calling my older sister...fortunately she was closer than I and by the time I got there she was already on the phone to the emergency people......all the way over there, as I was driving...I was wondering ..is he dead? please Lord...don't let him be dead.....I'm not ready.....

Dad was in a semi-conscious state...barely able, at times to give a verbal response,....the paramedics arrived and assessed the situation..did some tests and gave him an injection through an I.V. to bring his sugar level up......slowly he came around...slowly he started talking, and smiling and wondering what all the fuss was about.

My dad is a war veteran of World War 2,...ten days after he and my mom married he went overseas for three years!! When he came home they started having babies...4 of them, each 3-4 years apart...2 girls, 2 boys. Before they got pregnant with me my dad was doing some welding, on a bridge, 30 ft up in the air when he fell,..broke his back in 3 places...was in a body cast for 6 months......but it didn't stop him....my dad was a hard worker........always working, always fixing something......we were a family that never had a lot of material things and we never expected it either....but when he brought home a surprise of a chocolate bar for each of us, we were excited and the day that he opened his coat and there was a little kitten.....well, we though we had touched the moon!

My dad could fix anything and one of my brothers just commented not long ago about the wealth of knowledge that my dad had in his brain...he wished he could tap it all before my dad wasn't around anymore. One year, my dad only got one week of holiday and I had to have one of my surgeries. The surgery took place in a hospital about an hours drive from our house and I was going to be there for ten days. My dad decided to stretch out his holiday week to two by working every morning and then him and my mom would drive every afternoon to the hospital to see me. Some holiday!

The day that I got married I didn't realize that my dad was in pain....apparently his gal bladder had been acting up and unbeknown to me, while I was on my honeymoon, he was getting it removed....I never knew til I called home...he didn't want to spoil 'my big day'...what a guy!

My dad has become very vocal about his belief in God the older he has become......he was always a fine example of a strong moral man as we were growing up but since we've all become adults and parents, we have seen what a godly man he has become, very strong in his faith.

I thought it would be easier, the older I get, to let my parents go...but it has turned out the opposite.....but the reality is that they wont be here forever.....and as I was saying to the Lord on my frantic drive to their house this week....I'm not ready yet....but afterwards the realization hit quite strongly......are we ever ready?